In the beginning of this year I compared different, freely available, material passports in the Netherlands for the infrastructure coalition of MVO Nederland, called Groene Netten. At that moment I started to question myself if this would work for the textile sector as well. I am curious what your opinion is.

What is a material passport?There are different names given to the kind of same structure: a material passport, a Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) , substance list, you name it. What they all have in common is that it is kind of an ingredient list that tells us what is inside a product and sometimes it also tells how the ingredients are combined. It is not a certification, but like on foodpackages or shampoo’s an enumeration of ingredients. Every factory could add this to it's products.

Care labels are commonIn the textile sector, it is common to have a care label that shows how to wash the item and which materials in which percentages are inside an item. This however is always about the textile and not about the buttons, zippers, Velcro or other materials that part of the textile product. I think adding these ingredients might make it possible to recycle more of the product.

Journey of the textile itemYou never know where a textile item ends up.If the item is rented it could go back to the design company for disassembly, then a code on the item will do, the company could keep a logbook with different material passports and how to disassemble the items. It is not necessary to add a whole ingredients list to the textile item itself. But most of the time the item will end up in a recycling bin and will be sorted for second hand sale or shredded and respun into new yarn (ideally, nowadays still most textiles and up as felted car filling). Then knowing the materials is even more vital for high value recycling.

Label or no label?What do you think? Is a label the right way to keep track of “the ingredients” inside a textile item? There are pro’s and cons.

A label is known in the industry and widely applied.

It is on the item, so will be with it for years, if the wearer does not cut it out (I am guilty of that too, some of those labels itch!)

A paper hangtag will be cut off and thrown away immediately.

Maybe an infrared embroidery that can be read by a machine in the recycling factory?

I think knowing what is inside an item is step nr. 1 towards high value recycling of materials. How could we apply the concept of material passports in the textile industry?

Image is from fashionrevolution.org a movement to make wearers aware of the circumstances in the fashion industry.